tbh I really am dissatisfied but not to the point I have to drop a novel, when either FL or ML, specially the ML is not a virgin but that was years ago maybe when I'm like 13-15yo. lololol now I understand reality better.
It's probably bc my hopeless romantic teenage self finds it ideal and perfect. Well imagine a hot guy keeping his self pure for his one true love. and it's pretty conservative 'age' that time.
IDK now tho, I'll guess ppl are more or less open minded abt it
What part of fiction was hard to understand?
But sure, let's look at my view in reality as well.
I'm from Sweden. Someone (adult) planning to marry before sex is likely to be the object of a social security checkup.
Most people totally fail to understand how we function in this country. It's not that we tolerate sex before marriage. It's that we look with absolute distaste and horror upon the lack of sex before marriage. In all probability we'll suspect at a case of systematic parental abuse before that person reached adulthood.
Obviously I'll mirror the norm for what is considered civilised behaviour in the culture I come from.
No, I mean, I read all sort of books from all over the world, and I'm not going to drop a story just because the characters in it behave differently from the cultures I'm used to...
Unless it's something extreme as a culture that justifies and celebrates rape as "normal", or a psychopath protagonist indulging in slaughter without suffering any consequences (though these types of stories tend to be wish fulfillment that are pretty badly written). Or stories that indulge in particular sexual fetishes (again, these tend to be straight-up porn without a decent plot).
Otherwise I couldn't care less if the characters are virgins or experienced, whether they are warriors or pacifists, whether they have a strong sense of justice or apathetic, or if the culture is entirely alien.
Well, my (initial) response was to the OP. For me the concept of love being 'unpure' because of prior sex is tantamount to a culture justifying rape. It's basically two sides of the same coin, well from the point of view of the culture I come from. So, for me it belongs to the 'something extreme' that would have you drop a book.
That said, I don't have any problem with a main character portrayed as awkward and for that reason lacking experience. What I do have problems with is when all (almost always female) characters with experience automatically get portrayed as 'bad' girls. Ie, not pure.
StenDuring Oh, yeah. I don't buy into that "unpure" BS either. That's just nonsense. And hypocritical. After all, most of these stories tend to feature the male protagonist getting a harem of girls. All of those girls might be virgins, but the moment the protagonist sleeps with the first one, he's no longer a virgin. Yet the rest of the girls in his harem are expected to be virgins? Double standards much?
But just because a story features a 25-year-old virgin (or older) doesn't mean it automatically claims that relationships must be pure or whatever. As you stated, there may be reasons for it, and I don't think it's always because he's awkward. Maybe he was just career orientated or couldn't find the right one.
We're in perfect agreement here. My lashing out totally tied in with the explicit 'purity' with it's associated implied 'impurity'.
StenDuring Honestly, when I was younger, I used to read all those American Harlequin or whatever trashy romance novels, so I never bought into all this purity BS to begin with. Was shocked when it was supposedly "Asian" culture, and I'm supposed to be Asian, but I had never heard of this before.
I mean, there's the Western equivalent of Christian belief in the virtue of chastity and no sex before marriage and I was aware of that, but I knew those sort of beliefs were pretty outdated in the end of the twentieth century/beginning of the twenty-first century, and that nobody takes them seriously. Then I started reading manga and anime, and it's not the text itself but rather the vehement reactions and comments of the readers that actually play up this whole purity thing, and I found myself disturbed by it. Fortuately, those sort of...uh, pornographic texts constitute a tiny minority of the manga and anime I indulge in, so I usually pay no attention to the comments regarding them.
Even then, there was this outrage and uproar when the author of Seiken no Blacksmith wrote about her heroine being raped by a villain to show how traumatic and painful such an experience was, and fans actually sent her death threats and protests, forcing her to retcon that part of the story...all because they want their heroine to be kept "pure". It was disgusting. The whole point of that scene was to show how traumatic and psychologically agonizing it is for rape victims to go through such experiences, and that the mental scars linger on, and that rape should never be taken lightly, but the readers completely dismiss that in favor of their...ideals for purity.
The emphasis on virginity stems from a social construct, so it fits with a lot of stories in webnovel. As for a personal opinion, I don't mind if both men and women aren't virgins in a story, or are virgins... I'd much rather have a reasonable explanation to the lack of sexuality, or not lack of... The harem stories are set for the mindset of readers who like girls to be pure in the basis of owning an object that you don't want to receive as second hand goods, while the males in the stories are the actual human beings who collect these said girls (objects)... so what is there to complain about?
That's cough incel cough -mentality :D
Was that last question ironic? As in I really hope so.
StenDuring Are you referring to my mentality or the "fans" of Seiken no Blacksmith?
The latter obviously :D
Personally, I don't mind if either the MC or Female Lead is not virgin.
It doesn't change the fact that the story is good enough for me to enjoys the read.
But then again, I don't mind the Female Lead being virgin because Cough.
Nah, some people couldn't just accept the non-virgin yet, or they find it hard to accept them since we would always want to be the 'first'.
JohnnyKbca thank's for telling me i don't feel that it's that bad to tell her to look past it anymore (since i don't wanna offend her)
i should really thank you guy's for telling me... as i'm not sure how to tell or convince my friend to try and think of it in as something not that offensive as she think it is. :)
My current relationship is being ruined by the unpleasant memories of previous relationships. And it's awful. Every day, I also consider whether he may cheat in the future. And it doesn't appear that I find anything odd about him. But I'm horribly afraid of getting signs of cheating . I want happiness for everyone. I'll never understand what betrayal is, too.
